Microsoft’s New Xbox 360 Wireless Speed Wheel

With Apple’s WWDC keynote already a distant memory, we can get back to focusing on the other important monsoon of tech news this week: E3. Starting with Microsoft’s new Wireless Speed Wheel revealed yesterday for the Xbox 360. It looks like a more hardcore version of Nintendo’s Wiimote plastic wheel housing, complete with a steeper $59.99 price tag when it goes on sale later this year. (Presumably timed to coincide with the release of the next Forza game.)

The snippets of the official press release posted on Major Nelson’s blog point out some of the wheel’s features including a standard 360 controller button layout with trigger buttons for the gas and brake, haptic feedback and rumble and green bands of lights along each handle providing additional visual feedback. As Kotaku points out, there’s no mention of it being a motion-controlled wheel in the press release, but none of the product shots show a base or a stand, or indicate that it’s supposed to be used in any other manner than just holding it in your hands like a regular wireless controller. Hopefully it will be demo’d on the show floor later this week to answer that question.

OhGizmo! is a frequently updated blog that focuses on covering items that will appeal to a very specific and often very passionate audience: the geek. Aside from the fare of innovative consumer electronic products, the reader can expect to find news about geek culture, absurd inventions, awe inspiring technology, and an ever growing assortment of articles that we like to think fit within our view of what we’re calling the Geek Lifestyle.